“Can make subtle harmonic changes or be a hugely creative plugin, but either way it makes your mixes sound better”: Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ review

Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ: What is it?

Scaler EQ could well be one of those ‘why didn’t I use that before?’ plugins. It’s an EQ that not only handles the boosting and cutting of different frequency ranges, like a regular EQ, but also the frequencies of notes that are in key with your song. It works out the song key and you boost note frequencies (or a selection) in that range, or attenuate those that are not. But does it make a big difference to your sound?

To answer that question up front – and indeed whether it’s worth it’s worth your while reading the rest of this review – Scaler EQ can make both subtle and more creative differences. You might not have thought you needed an EQ dedicated to scale in your life – and probably, like us, hadn’t even dreamt a thing like it even existed – but once you try it, it’s almost (but not quite) as revelatory as using a regular EQ. OK, it’s a little more je ne sais quoi than that, the results are definitely more musical, tighter and often less muddied. But it’s also a lot more creative than you might imagine – you can enhance particular sounds like drums in ways you might not have imagined, and stepping through its many presets can be inspirational. But before we get ahead of ourselves (OK, we already have) let’s have a look at how Scaler EQ works in practice.

Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ: Performance and verdict

First up, in order to understand the UI, it’s pretty easy. Just think of a regular EQ with its various nodes and apply those to notes rather than frequency. Actually, Scaler EQ does both, and its shapes are solid when applied to frequency, and ‘lined’ (for want of a better description) when applied to scales or notes. 

The plugin can detect the key of your tune – simply hit the very obvious button and play the song, and it does the job pretty quickly – and then you can simply boost the note frequencies in that key using six nodes across the range, or cut them, or indeed do both simultaneously. 

Dials let you alter the Frequency of the node, its Gain, it’s Width and Q – the steepness of its slopes. There’s also a Range dial which is less obvious, but applies to individual harmonic peaks within a Node range, so you can pinpoint exact note frequencies, or apply boost and cut to a wider range around each.

There are a lot of other features which we’ll cover below, but the thrust of Scaler EQ is boosting those frequencies in key and cutting those not. For the latter, we’re not really talking about misplaced notes, rather harmonic content that might exist around notes – ringing guitar strings, extraneous noise, stuff that muddies a mix without being obvious about it. 

It’s these elements that Scaler is attempting to attenuate and it largely does it well, which can be demoed using its many presets that are categorised by instrument type, Voice, Orchestra, Master or the looser ‘Sound Design’. These are a must to audition and in conjunction with the Bypass button, will give you a quick demo of why you need Scaler EQ in your life, and how creative it can be. 

Other Scaler EQ features and uses

Scaler EQ features include what are called ‘Magic shelves’ which apply shelf processing to the stereo signal. There’s both mid and side processing to maybe boost the harmonies of the sides or reduce those in the mid position of the stereo field. Talking of which, there is an overall stereo width dial, and also to the right of the main controls, a compressor and limiter. You can also override the detected scale with your own, or even reverse the process so you cut frequencies in key and boost those out of key – very Richard James.  

Scaler EQ perhaps surprisingly comes into its own matching drum loops with tunes, something we’re always told to do, but, hey, it’s drums so never obvious what the key is. Scaler lets you simply remove harmonic content of, say, a drum loop so that loop can be used in any song, or bring out the harmonic content so it can be matched easier. Overall, then, there are way more uses to having an EQ that focuses on scale than you (and we) thought.

On an ambitious scale

The acoustic guitar presets reveal Scaler’s ability to subtly lift mixes like an EQ does, but in a musical way. It’s more obvious with electric guitar where individual notes are brought out from a blurrier wall of sound. It is probably most at home with vocals, though, where tuning might be less obvious. Here you can reverse the process and boost inharmonic notes to really ID them; pulling them back is really dramatic and cleans the sound up considerably.

Scaler EQ is a bit of a shock to the system, then. It’s not dramatic enough to make us feel we’ve been mixing wrongly for years, but it does start to make us feel uncomfortable when not using it; whether tunes might be full of inharmonic content you just can’t detect. Of course, if that is the case it’s not the end of the world, but Scaler does make you think deeper about mixes and improves them. What more could you ask for? Great price, too.

MusicRadar verdict: Scaler EQ can make subtle harmonic changes or be a hugely creative plugin, but either way it makes your mixes sound better, and for a small-ish outlay.

Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ: The web says

"This plugin is not just another EQ in the toolbox; it’s a groundbreaking advancement in the world of audio engineering."
Song Mix Master

Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ: Hands-on demos

Plugin Boutique

Scaler EQ | The World's First Truly Musical EQ - YouTube

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Ave Mcree

Scaler EQ - WTF is it Exactly? - YouTube

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Alex Reid

A Scale Based EQ? Boost Frequencies In Tune With your Music with Scaler EQ - YouTube

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Plugin Boutique Scaler EQ: Specifications

• macOS 10.14 or higher. Natively compatible with Apple Silicon. VST, VST3, AU, AAX, Standalone. 64-bit compatible only.
• Windows 7 or higher. VST, VST3, AAX, Standalone. 64-bit and 32-bit compatible.
• CONTACT: Plugin Boutique